Cork, Past & Present

Recently naturalised Corkman Frank Hannigan told me about this. It is a fabulous compendium of old photographs and maps of Cork City.

Many readers will already have seen Frank trumpet its merits on Twitter and FaceBook, but compared to me, he is a recent "blow-in" (only about 20 years about the place) and no doubt you can do with my confirmation that it really is "the Berries" (look it up, Frank). :-)

The Cork City Library staff - those damned public servants some of us love to abuse - have really proved their worth with this.

Bad News for Media Victims

Readers may recall the case of O'Connell v Irish Times in which a mother sued the newspaper for distress caused by allegedly negligent reporting of the circumstances of her son's death. The Plaintiff succeeded in the Circuit Court, but the newspaper appealed to the High Court. (Circuit Court decisions have no formal precedential authority).

The appeal was finally reached recently.

Unfortunately, it was settled before the Court could make a decision. The details are not in the public domain but I gather that, in the final result, the Plaintiff got something from the proceedings, but unfortunately not the satisfaction of improving the legal position of media victims.

The Joys of Country Living

As I turned to put on my coat this morning, I was pleasantly surprised that our resident pheasant was in unusually sociable mood. He is usually a model child - heard but not seen. (Er ... did I get that right ?)

I had only had my camera-phone handy, and had to snap him through glass in the early-morning light, which accounts for the inferior quality, but still...He's a fine fellow, no ?

(My father wants him for Christmas, and not for his feathers !)

That Important Cork Negligent Publication case

Looking at the called-over list for appeals from Cork Circuit Court, I was startled to see that the two judges assigned to the list are the Limerick duo of Murray C.J. (remember him ?) and Johnson P.. It is a little unusual (only a little) for a member of the Supreme Court to sit as a High Court judge, but I don't remember the Chief Justice doing so before. It is somewhat intimidating for practitioners to have him paired with the President of the High Court.

No doubt, it is completely coincidental that our old friend the negligent publication case is listed (at no.16)for hearing, having been adjourned from the last appeal sessions, which - I now recall - also featured a Supreme Court judge.

Update on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 02:11PM by Fergus O'Rourke

I have it on the best authority that the "negligent publication" case cannot proceed. Due to the postponement of the appeal sessions from March to June, a crucial witness has become unavailable. (Circuit Court appeals proceed by a full re-hearing).

Legal Jobs

I have today added a new page here giving links to firms offering listings of jobs of interest to the Cork law community.

Cork Case of International Significance

Readers may remember the case of O'Connell v. The Irish Times, reported by me earlier this year.In brief, the newspaper was ordered to pay damages because of negligently reporting, allegedly, that a dead man had been a drug-dealer, thus causing his mother psychological injury.

As I anticipated, the decision was appealed to the High Court, and the appeal was listed for hearing this week as you will, of course already have read about here but has been adjourned to the next Appeal sessions in March 2008.

Interestingly perhaps, the delay is due (so the court was told this morning in my own presence)to difficulties in deciphering transcripts of the original criminal trial, the report of which was allegedly negligent.

A Page of Legal Links for Cork

I have added to this website a page of material specific to the Cork legal scene, which I hope will be useful to locals and non-locals, lawyers and non-lawyers, alike. It will , however, clearly be most relevant to local lawyers and those with an interest in Cork legal affairs.

The page is here.

Illegal Search ?

At Thurles earlier this afternoon, all passengers on the Dublin-bound train ex-Cork were ordered out to the platform and subjected to a personal search by the police. Searches were performed by plain-clothes officers.

On enquiry, one passenger told that it was a "random search".

I cannot remember a precedent and I cannot imagine that there is a power to do this. It seems a "diabolical liberty" to me.

Anyone suggest a reason that I might be wrong ?

My original belief is that this was NOT random. However, the search was so perfunctory that it was impossible to believe that it was made in the honest belief that there might be something to be found.

Turtles

Some readers may have seen on BBC 2 television yesterday a programme on the phenomenon of leatherback turtles off our coasts. For those who didn't, and actually perhaps even more for those who did, click here for a great website filling-in some of the details.

These creatures are not only huge (weighing up to a ton - that's the weight of several motor cars !) but are amazing travellers: they more-or-less replicate the old Triangular Route i.e. Ireland-West Africa-Caribbean. They are also awesome - for once the word is definitely apt - divers: ... a dive of 1,280 metres has been recorded.

I have run out of time; you must visit the website.

The Banks of my Own Lovely ... Venice ?

Perhaps chastened by last week's rebuke, Finbarr Cullen has stayed away from politicians this week. Instead, he protests at a proposal "by the Cork Chamber of Horrors - sorry, Commerce" to drain the south channel of the River Lee in order to construct a light railway:

...the Lee to become a railway track ! The Venice of the South ! Where we sported and played in the green leafy shades, stroke-hauling salmon and catching bile-filled mullet - to disappear in the name of progress ! Not on, boy.

I thought the Venice of the South was in Italy, but the rant is otherwise splendidly unanswerable, as I am sure you will agree.

Well, maybe one dissenter could be my old friend - if he will allow me to call him that - Theo Dorgan, to whom Finbarr applies the insulting sobriquet of Great Brain of Cork. That it is intended as an insult is put beyond doubt not only by the context ("recently spotted junketing ..." - another give-away word - " ...to Jerusalem, despite an international boycott") but by the separate reference to "Fintan O'Toole, Ireland's leading intellectual (excluding our own Theo Dorgan, of course)".

Update on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at 08:11AM by Fergus O'Rourke

Theo Dorgan and I have been FaceBook friends for some years now, so I suppose that he has allowed me to call him my friend.

Oh Finbarr ! And we were doing so well ...

Finbarr Cullen seems to hate all political parties; he distributes his raillery indiscriminately, as far as I can so far tell.

However, when he refers to my old friends the Labour Party as having "the backbone of a chocolate eclair", he risks losing this fan.

Times Watch 06.02.2007

Yet again, a complete blank is drawn.

When I first started this weekly feature (back in October), it was an attempt to get some attention from News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch, prop.). I assumed that the problem with distribution of a puny weekly supplement to a flagship title would immediately yield to the appropriate dose of attention.

Before that, I had already successfully obtained some attention from the editorial staff by e-mailing the newspaper. Whether resulting from that or not, there was an improvement in the position. This improvement lasted a few weeks only, though.

Six months later, it is a matter of some wonder to me that things have gotten even worse.

I am not sure that there is any point in persisting with this exercise, but I will deal with the issue at least once here.

Timeswatch 29.01.2007

Yet again, no luck in finding a copy of "The Times" which had the Law supplement supplied with it. Not for the first time, either, most copies encountered had none of the three supplements forming part of the paper as published.

Timeswatch 23.01.07

Yet another blank drawn this week.

(For previous posts on this saga, see here and subsequent posts here and here. The series will eventually come to rest here but the link is not yet up at the time of this writing.)

The Cork Independent

Since "The Cork Examiner" went national, debate on local political issues in Cork has been muted, at least as far as impinging on my consciousness has been concerned. It is true that the Prendevil (© David K.) thing is interminably controversial about everything, but I can't stand it.

My enthusiasm for the freesheet "Inside Cork" - now re-named "The Cork Independent" has been declining since Eddie the Editor Lyons parted company with it, but publishing photographs of my daughter - as has been done twice already this year - tends to re-kindle it, as I have already noted in another context.

But enough of the tiresome paternal pride. My purpose here is to draw attention to the paper's "City Searchlight" column, of which I was only dimly aware last year. I wonder if others will agree with me that the current writer, Finbarr Cullen, has a penchant for making issues come alive.

On January 11, he delivers himself of these bons mots:

• ...glass box builder Owen O'Callaghan
• ... Northside TD, Billy the Skid Kelleher
• ... FF Councillor Michael(Honours) McGrath warned New York Revellers not to mix medication, like Cuprinol, with booze as the combination would contribute to a car accident. Thanks, Cllr Michael, thanks for the advice...Where would we be without them ?

(Yes, that word *is* Cuprinol.)

And, on the following week:

• ...somnolent Government Minister, Michael Ahern
• ...Cork County Council has found the answer [to an allegedly dangerous road]. No, not a new road, not lighting ...not widening nor an alternative route. They've commissioned a STUDY. Yes, a STUDY...'international engineering consultants'(wow!) will tackle the problem say the boffins in County Hall and come up with a solution. In other words ...County Hall dont give a tinkers.

TimesWatch 16.01.2007

Yet another bad week, in which I failed to find a single full copy.

Hold Them Accountable

I have listed here the TDs who voted for the ridiculous and humiliating situation which prevails in relation to ownership and control of Cork Airport.

TimesWatch 09.01.2007

(For the previous episodes, see here and here and here.)

Another bad week, in which I failed to find a single full copy.

This week's special "twist" is that 2 of the 4 outlets visited had no copy of "The Times" at all.

Also notable, but not a new development, is that this week was one of those in which the front page of the newspaper had no reference to a Law Section at all. On checking the website, though, it was clear that one was published.

Timeswatch 19.12.06

I wasn't in the city this week

I did look at the copies for sale in one Dublin outlet. These had no supplements of any kind, but this may be a seasonal thing.

"Palestrina was a Cork man; there is internal evidence in his music"

From "The Old Munster Circuit" by Maurice Healy (published in 1939 by Michael Joseph, re-published in 1979 by Mercier Press):

The best talk in the world is to be heard in Cork...All speak at once ; but there is both art and method in it. Talk of Haydn's Quartets ! As works of art they take second place to a Cork conversation. Palestrina was a Cork man; there is internal evidence in his music ...the idiom is there: one voice starts, but is almost immediately joined by a second and a third which descant about the first, adding to it, embellishing it, and sometimes even contradicting it,but never interfering with the story. Through all the apparent confusion there is pleasant repetition of the main theme; and all parts enjoy themselves thoroughly

(original punctuation retained)